ARCHIVED - Clocks go back in Spain on Sunday morning – possibly for the last time!

The debate continues over which time zone Spain ought to be in

Due to the coronavirus pandemic the issue of which time zone Spain ought to belong to, one which has caused considerable debate over the last few years, has been largely forgotten, and this weekend the country will revert to standard Central European Time for the winter as it has done since before the death of General Franco in 1975 (Franco adopted CET in 1940).

Summertime officially comes to an end at 3.00 in the morning on Sunday 25th October, when the clocks will go back an hour and it will be 2.00 again (or from 2.00 to 1.00 in the Canaries). In theory this means that Spaniards will gain an extra hour of sleep on Saturday night (unless they have young children…), but on the downside the hours of daylight will abruptly end much earlier and the sun will begin to set at approximately 18.00.

This putting back of the clocks takes place in compliance with the relevant EC Directive, but in theory the situation could still change in 2021 in line with a proposal made in 2018. This required each member state to decide its own policy with a view to eliminating the annual putting back and forward the clocks and deciding once and for all to which time zone it wished to belong.

In Spain the government at the time created a committee to evaluate the possibilities, with three gaining support from different lobbying groups: remaining on CET, remaining permanently on summertime, or even reverting to GMT. This latter proposal would for large parts of the country be the most appropriate geographically, as the Greenwich Meridian runs through the north-east of the country and the province of Alicante.

The National Committee for the Rationalization of Spanish Timetables is a fervent supporter of remaining on CET – the winter time which will be re-adopted on Sunday morning – on the grounds that it “favours productivity and performance”. However, there is considerable disagreement in the tourism sector, where the long summer evenings are held to be an important element in attracting visitors to the Costas.

It was not until 1996 that Spain began to put the clocks back on the last Sunday in October rather than in September, in line with other European countries. Prior to that there were periods during the spring and autumn when the difference between Spain and the UK, rather than always being one hour, was either 2 hours or none at all!